Tags and Trigger Warnings

Just decided to steal a copy/pasta of this from Tumblr and throw it over here. Even though portions of the blog are tumblr specific, the message is one that can be applied to multiple social networks.

Tags and Trigger Warnings
My thoughts on TW’s and Tags

I know that tumblr is a pretty ‘public’ social network. For the most part, I see that there are many people who do use tags and will tag for TW’s. From what I see, there is a majority who is conscious and aware of what might trigger others. The thing is though, just because some do this, not everyone is going to follow along with how everyone else does things.

There are people who choose to view their spaces as their own. Be they tumblr blogs, offsite blogs and social net. profiles. They want to post what they like and what they’re interested in. Sometimes these people will use the tags, sometimes they don’t. Sometimes they even remember or are aware of the fact that content may trigger someone else.

It’s great when people do this, but just because they do, we shouldn’t feel entitled to it. It’s a favor. Like I said, not everyone does this. There are some things that a majority of users don’t even realize are potential triggers.

What it boils down to, the tumblr user is only responsible for what they’re posting. Not how you are understanding or reacting to the posts content. If you don’t like what someone posts, you can easily unfollow them and you won’t have to see it.

Now I can understand if the content is gore, nudity, nsfw, violent, racist, sexist, etc. There are some broad areas that people remember are triggers and they tag accordingly. That said, if the poster forgets, or just doesn’t tag, you can’t police their actions.

If your sensibilities are delicate, there are just some users that you should not follow. Because their lives, dreams, and tales are full of trigger warnings and they can’t tag for each and every one of them.

Basically, the unfollow button and the block buttons are there for a reason, use them, quit bitching at other people about how they choose to express themselves in their personal spaces (be they blogs or other areas)